"I've got just this to say, that I paid my way here, I've asked no odds of any man sence I've ben here, an' that anybody that takes pains to meddle with my affairs is an impudent scoundrel!"

Saying which, the old man turned to go, while the court was paralyzed into silence.

But Tom Dosser, a new arrival, and a famous shot, now stepped in front of the old man.

"I ax yer parding," said Tom, in the blandest of tones, "but, uv course, yer didn't mean me when yer mentioned impudent scoundrels?"

"Yes, I did--I meant you, and ev'rybody like yer," replied the old man.

Tom's hand moved toward his pistol. The chairman expeditiously got out of range. Stumpy Flukes promptly retired to the extreme end of the bar, and groaned audibly.

The old man _was_ in the wrong; but, then, wasn't it _too_ mean, when blood was so hard to get out, that these difficulties _always_ took place just after he'd got the floor clean?

[Illustration: "I DON'T GENERALLY SHOOT TILL THE OTHER FELLER DRAWS."]

"I don't generally shoot till the other feller draws," explained Tom Dosser, while each man in the room wept with emotion as they realized they had lived to see Tom's skill displayed before their very eyes--"I don't generally shoot till the other feller draws; but you'd better be spry. I usually make a little allowance for age, but--"

Tom's further explanations were indefinitely delayed by an abnormal contraction of his trachea, the same being induced by the old man's right hand, while his left seized the unhappy Thomas by his waist-belt, and a second later the dead shot of Blugsey's was tossed into the middle of the floor, somewhat as a sheaf of oats is tossed by a practiced hand.

"Anybody else?" inquired the old man. "I'll back Vermont bone an' muscle agin' the hull passel of ye, even if I _be_ a deacon.' The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.'"

"The angel needn't hurry hisself," said Tom Dosser, picking himself up, one joint at a time. "Ef that's the crowd yer travelin' with, and they've got a grip anything like yourn, I don't want nothin' to do with 'em."

Boston Ben looked excited, and roared:

"This court's adjourned _sine die_."

Then he rushed up to the newly announced deacon, caught him firmly by the right hand, slapped him heartily between the shoulders, and inquired, rather indignantly:

"Say, old Angelchum, why didn't you ever let folks know yer style, instead uv trottin' 'round like a melancholy clam with his shells shut up tight? That's what this crowd wants to know! Now yev opened down to bed-rock, we'll git English Sam from Sonora, an' git up the tallest kind uv a rasslin' match."

"Not unless English Sam meddles with my business, you won't," replied the deacon, quickly. "I've got enough to do fightin' speretual foes."

"Oh," said Boston Ben, "we'll manage it so the church folks needn't think 'twas a set-up job. We'll put Sam up to botherin' yer, and yer can tackle him at sight. Then--"

"Excuse me, Boston," interrupted Tom Dosser, "but yer don't hit the mark. I'm from Vermont myself, an' deacons there don't fight for the fun of it, whatever they may do in the village _you_ hail from." Then, turning to the old man, Tom asked: "What part uv the old State be ye from, deacon, an' what fetched ye out?"

"From nigh Rutland," replied the deacon, "I hed a nice little place thar, an' wuz doin' well. But the young one's eyes is bad. None uv the doctors thereabouts could do anythin' fur 'em. Took her to Boston; nobody thar could do anythin'--said some of the European doctors were the only ones that could do the job safely. Costs money goin' to Europe an' payin' doctors--I couldn't make it to hum in twenty year; so I come here."

"Only child?" inquired Tom Dosser, while the boys crowded about the two Vermonters, and got up a low buzz of sympathetic conversation.

The old man heard it all, and to his lonesome and homesick soul it was so sweet and comforting, that it melted his natural reserve, and made him anxious to unbosom himself to some one. So he answered Tom:

"Only child of my only darter."

"Father dead?" inquired Tom Dosser.

"Better be," replied the deacon, bitterly. "He left her soon after they were married."

"Mean skunk!" said Tom, sympathetically.

"I want to judge as I'd _be_ judged," replied the deacon; "but I feel ez ef I couldn't call that man bad enough names. Hesby was ez good a gal ez ever lived, but she went to visit some uv our folks at Burlington, an'

fust thing I know'd she writ me she'd met this chap, and they'd been married, an' wanted us to forgive her; but he was so good, an' she loved him so dearly."

"Good for the gal," said Tom, and a murmur of approbation ran through the crowd.

"Of course, we forgave her. We'd hev done it ef she married Satan himself," continued the deacon. "But we begged her to bring her husband up home, an' let us look at him. Whatever was good enough for _her_ to love was good enough for us, and we meant to try to love Hesby's husband."

"Done yer credit, deacon, too," declared Tom, and again the crowd uttered a confirmatory murmur. "Ef some folks--deacons, too--wuz ez good--But go ahead, deac'n."

"Next thing we heard from her, he had gone to the place he was raised in; but a friend of his, who went with him, came back, an' let out he'd got tight, an' been arrested. She writ him right off, beggin' him to come home, and go with her up to our place, where he could be out of temptation an' where she'd love him dearer than ever."

"Pure gold, by thunder!" ejaculated Tom, while a low "You bet," was heard all over the room.

Tom's eyes were in such a condition that he thought the deacon's were misty, and the deacon noticed the same peculiarities about Tom.

"She never got a word from him," continued the deacon; "but one of her own came back, addressed in his writing."

"The infernal scoundrel!" growled Tom, while from the rest of the boys escaped epithets which caused the deacon, indignant as he was, to shiver with horror.

"She was nearly crazy, an' started to find him, but nobody knowed where he was. The postmaster said he'd come to the office ev'ry day for a fortnight, askin' for a letter, so he must hev got hers."

"Ef all women had such stuff in 'em," sighed Tom, "there'll be one fool less in California. 'Xcuse me, deac'n."

"She never gev up hopin' he'd come back," said the deacon, in accents that seemed to indicate labored breath "an' it sometimes seems ez ef such faith 'd be rewarded by the Lord some time or other. She teaches Pet--that's her child--to talk about her papa, an' to kiss his pictur; an' when she an' Pet goes to sleep, his pictur's on the pillar beween 'em."

"An' the idee that any feller could be mean enough to go back on such a woman! Deacon, I'd track him right through the world, an' just tell him what you've told us. Ef _that_ didn't fetch him, I'd consider it a Christian duty an' privilege to put a hole through him."

"I couldn't do that," replied the deacon, "even ef I was a man uv blood; fur Hesby loves him, an' he's Pet's dad; Besides, his pictur looks like a decent young chap--ain't got no hair on his face, an' looks more like an innercent boy than anythin' else. Hesby thinks Pet looks like him, an' I couldn't touch nobody looking like Pet. Mebbe you'd like to see her pictur," continued the deacon, drawing from his pocket an ambrotype, which he opened and handed Tom.

"Looks sweet ez a posy," said Tom, regarding it tenderly. "Them little lips uv hern look jest like a rose when it don't know whether to open a little further or not."

The deacon looked pleased, and extracted another picture, and remarked, as he handed it to Tom:

"That's Pet's mother."

[Illustration: THE DEACON LOOKED PLEASED, AND EXTRACTED ANOTHER PICTURE, AND REMARKED, AS HE HANDED IT TO TOM, "THAT'S PET'S MOTHER."

TOM TOOK IT, LOOKED AT IT, AND SCREAMED, "MY WIFE!"]

Tom took it, looked at it, and screamed:

"_My wife_!"

He threw himself on the floor, and cried as only a big-hearted man _can_ cry.

The deacon gazed wildly about, and gasped:

"What's his name?--tell me quick!"